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Show by Jim Murray Mtinrpipaiy mi pnntts ' " ...I.' ...uu M ,,,, m,, n. i fui ..j..mm Its never too early to stop the fight Art Aragon was not as bad a fighter as he let on. No one could be. In point of fact, Art had a very good left hand. His right he used mainly to open his mail with, although he could deliver a brutish uppercut which was to be avoided if at all possible. With Aragon it was usually possible. One sportswriter once suggested Art took his ring style from baseball's Willie Keeler. He "hit 'em where they ain't." In order to land a punch, Art took a stance as complicated and painstaking and deliberate deliber-ate as a championship golfer lining up an important putt. Usually his opponents were too impatient to wait. Art's punches were usually like my putts way wide and long. Art had an extraordinary capacity for absorbing punishment. He also always had an extraordinary opportunity. Art fought the best. He had two wild fights with James Carter when Carter was lightweight champion champ-ion of the world. Art won the first. He lost the second, which was for the title. He fought Vince Martinez, who beat Kid Gavilan twice, and he fought Carmen Basilio. . Art could fight, but he played it for laughs. One night, he climbed in the ring with Cisco Andrade wearing a. pair of red-soled fireman's rubbers and so much makeup you couldn't tell if he had come to fix the plumbing or dance the ballet. By the fourth round, he looked, as usual, as if someone had broken a bottle of wine over his head. One thing Art did well was bleed. After he knocked Andrade kicking in the ninth, he sat on the rubbing table in his dressing room, watching the press pour in and coolly asked, "Anybody got a beer?" Then he sauntered over to Andrade's locker room where a doctor, with his hat still on, was applying clamps to a scalp wound. "You don't think they should have stopped it, Bobby?" he asked solicitously. "Ha, well, you're going to be the next lightweight champion of the world. You went nine rounds with me." "What about you?" a reporter asked Aragon. "Me? I'm going to be a movie star," Aragon announced. When someone pointed out that Andrade was owned and managed by Frank Sinatra and that this was a poor way to go about Hollywood ambitions, Aragon sighed in mock dismay. "I know," he said. "I told Abe (referee Abe Roth) that, when I wink, he was to stop the fight. He did. Only he gave it to me." A nearby newsman cited Art's puffy, bleeding, scarred eyes, what was visible of them. "How," he asked, "could anybody tell if you winked? You've got two permanent winks." I got a letter from Aragon the other day. In all the furor over ring deaths, several sectors of our society have been heard from. Doctors, lawyers, sportswriters, politicians, fans, even candlestick makers have gotten into the act. But to my knowledge, nobody, as usual, has checked the prize fighters. Art takes care of that. "Dear Jim," he writes, "I have scar tissue over both eyelids. There are long periods of time when I have double vision. I can't breathe properly. The bridge of my nose has been so shattered they cannot repair it. My vocal chords are damaged, my voice is fuzzy, and I am difficult to understand. "I remind you of the time I phoned your home, and your wife, Gerry, called out, 'Jim, either it's Art Aragon, or somebody is strangling to death over the phone.' To top all that, I have been diagnosed as having a certain amount of brain damage. Apart from all this, I consider myself a lucky fellow. I had 150 professional fights and I'm still alive. Sort of. "The secret? I quit one fight too soon. Fighters like Davey Moore, Benny Paret, Alejandro Lavorante, Johnny Owen, Kiko Bejines and many, many more quit one fight too late. "I have maintained for years that boxing regulations should be tightened. Not headgear, head-gear, bigger gloves, etc., but a complete physical examination at least two days prior to the fight. That way, no fighter who has been injured in a previous fight can step into the ring. "Promoters, and some managers, too, would object to this because some fights would have to be canceled and, shucks, there goes the money." I got an even better idea, Art. So that everybody can quit "one fight too soon," let's have no fights. That way, people can understand everything they say over the phone, too. Only, that wasn't my wife that said that, Art. She wouldn't. I just made it up. I would. 1983 Los Angeles Times Syndicate |